Do You Hear What I Hear?

“If then I do not grasp the meaning of what someone is saying, I am a foreigner to the speaker, and he is a foreigner to me.”

1 Corinthians 14: 11

One of the most important skills that a leader must develop is that of good communication. Effective communication is an essential foundation for effective leadership. Without good communication skills, a leader is unable to motivate others to follow his vision from the Lord for the ministry they have been called to. A leader with strong communication skills can often succeed where others have failed simply by being able to better explain or convey the need, plan and purpose of a particular project or activity.

What is communication? Communication is the process of conveying information, thoughts, or opinions from a sender to a receiver with the use of a medium in an attempt to create shared understanding.  Communication can be either verbal or non-verbal, and the medium can be speech, gestures, writing, signs, sounds, touch, or body language! There are also two types of communication. The first is Sender-focused, as in lectures or speeches, which is a one-way communication intended simply to inform another person or group of something with no response expected or requested.  The second is Receiver-focused, where the intent is to engage someone else in a dialog and where a response is expected. For there to be effective communication, both the Sender and Receiver must participate.

The Bible itself is a form of communication.  It represents God’s Word to all people. The style God uses is Receiver-focused because He wants us to dialog with Him.  Whether His communication to us is an overt command or rebuke or if He speaks to us more subtlety through nature, events, or silence, or ultimately through the loving words and actions of Jesus, the Holy Spirit and his gift of Grace – his communication is always for us and not against us.  God also wants to dialog with us through prayer and meditation on His Word. Communication with God is called prayer, and 1 Thessalonians 5:17 says that we should “pray continually.”  That means we should not only speak to God regularly, but we should also be ready to listen to Him and receive His Word for us. Like Samuel says in 1 Samuel 3:11, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening!”

There are 4 principles of effective communication.  First, we must be Clear. We must speak with confidence and avoid generalities and vagueness.  The best communication is specific and intentional for its audience. The sender should not leave anything open to interpretation. The second is to be Concise. We should always strive to be as brief as possible and to the point, and avoid straying off-topic or bringing up irrelevant information. We should always speak to be understood, not to be heard!  The third principle is to be Open & Honest. We should endeavor to give out all the information we have and avoid being evasive or leaving out critical details.  This often causes confusion and the feeling that we are hiding something. The fourth and final principle is to be Frequent.  Regular, frequent communication sets a tone of caring and involvement.  Repetition produces recollection and regular communication builds stronger and deeper relationships.

So, if we want to become better communicators, we must develop the ability to clearly express a message in various forms of communication, including conversational speaking, writing, public speaking and formal presentations.  We can’t always be good at each form of communication, but we should try to improve where we can. We must also show a genuine interest in people and their needs. Proverbs 18:2 says, “A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions.”  We must learn to see things, and communicate, from the other person’s perspective, and to be sincere and compassionate. We should also be more discerning and intuitive, reading body language and other signs so that we can determine if our message is being understood. And it is imperative that we must become better listeners so that we can understand the other person’s point of view and more effectively dialog together.

Finally, we must always remember that the goal of communication is not to win arguments, but to communicate ideas and messages clearly and effectively, so that there is mutual understanding.